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| The Following User Says Thank You to hasselmm For This Useful Post: | ||
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2009-12-27
, 10:49
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Posts: 87 |
Thanked: 88 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
@ Beijing
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#22
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Sorry but I strongly disagree here, Nokia cannot afford to not be in China with their full line-up, especially with a device aimed to lure in developers. China has a large pool of potential developers and the iPhone is very lacking when it comes to Chinese language apps, so here Nokia could quickly have gained an edge. I honestly cannot figure out why they didn't launch in China as well.
| The Following User Says Thank You to freppas For This Useful Post: | ||
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2009-12-27
, 13:35
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Posts: 19 |
Thanked: 13 times |
Joined on Oct 2009
@ Berlin, Germany
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#23
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Originally Posted by freppas
Oh, you greatly overestimate the importance of China when it comes to luxary goods like smart phones. Let's play some numbers.
Sorry but I strongly disagree here, Nokia cannot afford to not be in China with their full line-up, especially with a device aimed to lure in developers. China has a large pool of potential developers and the iPhone is very lacking when it comes to Chinese language apps, so here Nokia could quickly have gained an edge. I honestly cannot figure out why they didn't launch in China as well.
Yes, there are 1.3 billion people. But, about 80% of them are shockingly poor landworkers.
So we have to focus on the 266 million people in the coast regions. Most of them are underpaid factory workers, still way too poor to effort a 600 EUR device. So it really are quite few people in China who can effort a N900. China's potential smart phone market, is significantly smaller than EU or USA. Probably it's even smaller than the market of single European countries like Germany (80 million people) or even Netherlands (20 million people).
Now add the poor copyright situation in China and you should stand up and applaude Nokia for not following the flock and burning money on that largely overestimated market. I really prefer Nokia standing arround for a while instead of wasting money in China.
Right now China is a good market for cheaper phones, but it's definitely not a market for IP loaded, luxary devices like smart phones yet. No return of investment for decades yet.
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2009-12-27
, 15:02
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Posts: 87 |
Thanked: 88 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
@ Beijing
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#24
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Originally Posted by hasselmm
The current market trends in China are moving rapidly towards upmarket devices, we see the same thing in india (also strangely missing from Nokias N900 launch) where people spend a larger amount of their paychecks on cellphones than would be conceivable in the west. ROI will be positive very fast, we are definitely not talking about decades here. 2 million iPhones were sold before the iPhone was launched here (grey-market devices not copied btw), largely because Apple did not provide the Chinese market with a legal marketing channel to purchase the device (for instance they paid more for these devices than people did in say the UK).
Oh, you greatly overestimate the importance of China when it comes to luxary goods like smart phones. Let's play some numbers.
Yes, there are 1.3 billion people. But, about 80% of them are shockingly poor landworkers.
So we have to focus on the 266 million people in the coast regions. Most of them are underpaid factory workers, still way too poor to effort a 600 EUR device. So it really are quite few people in China who can effort a N900. China's potential smart phone market, is significantly smaller than EU or USA. Probably it's even smaller than the market of single European countries like Germany (80 million people) or even Netherlands (20 million people).
Now add the poor copyright situation in China and you should stand up and applaude Nokia for not following the flock and burning money on that largely overestimated market. I really prefer Nokia standing arround for a while instead of wasting money in China.
Right now China is a good market for cheaper phones, but it's definitely not a market for IP loaded, luxary devices like smart phones yet. No return of investment for decades yet.
The Chinese high-end consumers read on western media and are very aware about what the newest technology is, it's just not possible to launch a product two years later here anymore.
Couple this with the still expanding economy and middle class and Nokia should definitely try to build any advantage that they can here.
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2009-12-27
, 20:49
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Posts: 19 |
Thanked: 13 times |
Joined on Oct 2009
@ Berlin, Germany
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#25
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Originally Posted by freppas
citation needed. i don't even remotely believe this number.
2 million iPhones were sold before the iPhone was launched here (grey-market devices not copied btw)
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2009-12-27
, 23:17
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Posts: 39 |
Thanked: 9 times |
Joined on Oct 2009
@ USA
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#26
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You guys need to visit China more often. Many people on the streets have N series smartphones and the N95, N8x series are all very popular here. The N97 is also being officially sold, so I wouldn't say there is no market here. Even many middle and high level executives I know in companies use the E-series phones like the E55 and E71.
Nokia should really target the Chinese market for Maemo. Every year there are more young software developers that have the energy looking for something to do. Nokia has a very good reputation here for building good hardware, as all their second hand phones have high resale values compared to other mobile companies. If the N900 was officially released even in Hong Kong think what it would do for the Maemo platform.
BTW has anyone tried scim-for-maemo (mscim) and mscim-googlepinyin in extras-devel? I need to install this soon as I need to use the N900 to input Chinese.
Last edited by kwurk; 2009-12-27 at 23:23.
Nokia should really target the Chinese market for Maemo. Every year there are more young software developers that have the energy looking for something to do. Nokia has a very good reputation here for building good hardware, as all their second hand phones have high resale values compared to other mobile companies. If the N900 was officially released even in Hong Kong think what it would do for the Maemo platform.
BTW has anyone tried scim-for-maemo (mscim) and mscim-googlepinyin in extras-devel? I need to install this soon as I need to use the N900 to input Chinese.
Last edited by kwurk; 2009-12-27 at 23:23.
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2009-12-28
, 01:03
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Posts: 19 |
Thanked: 13 times |
Joined on Oct 2009
@ Berlin, Germany
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#27
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Kwurk yes. Sure. Still those are just a small number of people compared to the rest of the world. And the rest of the world doesn't use funny glyphs, has proper copyright law, reliable judicative and so on.
Maybe one of the future devices even will also target China, but for a new and unprooven device, also addressing China not is worth the risk and money. The Maemo 5 software is complex, new and unproven. Even without supporting China it's a huge risk and a big adventure for everyone involved. Even without addressing China there are way too many bugs in the software still. Situation for first Maemo 6 devices won't be much different too. For such risky projects like Maemo adding China to the table really is one risk too much. China really isn't rich enough to justify that risk, I believe. Please do a little reality check and look at the GDP of China or even Hong Kong. When considering that numbers even small countries like the Netherlands or Switzerland are a better markets than China for expensive and highly experimental smart phones.
Well, or to summarize it: Do one thing, but do it proper.
Seems China doesn't fit into that "one thing" for Maemo managment yet.
Maybe one of the future devices even will also target China, but for a new and unprooven device, also addressing China not is worth the risk and money. The Maemo 5 software is complex, new and unproven. Even without supporting China it's a huge risk and a big adventure for everyone involved. Even without addressing China there are way too many bugs in the software still. Situation for first Maemo 6 devices won't be much different too. For such risky projects like Maemo adding China to the table really is one risk too much. China really isn't rich enough to justify that risk, I believe. Please do a little reality check and look at the GDP of China or even Hong Kong. When considering that numbers even small countries like the Netherlands or Switzerland are a better markets than China for expensive and highly experimental smart phones.
Well, or to summarize it: Do one thing, but do it proper.
Seems China doesn't fit into that "one thing" for Maemo managment yet.
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2009-12-28
, 02:06
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Posts: 1,427 |
Thanked: 2,077 times |
Joined on Aug 2009
@ Sydney
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#28
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Why not include Chinese/Korean/Japanese that live in Europe/US etc?
There are TONs of those who speak both English and an Asian languages.
I myself would love Korean support on N900 natively like the iPhone.
(iPhone supported Korean even when it wasn't even released in Korea)
Few of my Korean friends bought an iPhone only coz it supported Korean for SMS'ing others.
Even if this kind of market is only 20million world wide (pulling figures out of my head), that's 20 million less. If out of that 20 million, only 10% buy N900 regardless, maybe it could have been 20% if it supported CJK out of the box. I'm sure a few days/weeks of coding for CJK is worth to get that extra 10% which might still end up being a million more N900 sales. (Okay, maybe not 1 million, but maybe 50000 or 100000. Dunno, either way, that's a huge number of extra users and huge number of potential "good" developers for Maemo)
There are TONs of those who speak both English and an Asian languages.
I myself would love Korean support on N900 natively like the iPhone.
(iPhone supported Korean even when it wasn't even released in Korea)
Few of my Korean friends bought an iPhone only coz it supported Korean for SMS'ing others.
Even if this kind of market is only 20million world wide (pulling figures out of my head), that's 20 million less. If out of that 20 million, only 10% buy N900 regardless, maybe it could have been 20% if it supported CJK out of the box. I'm sure a few days/weeks of coding for CJK is worth to get that extra 10% which might still end up being a million more N900 sales. (Okay, maybe not 1 million, but maybe 50000 or 100000. Dunno, either way, that's a huge number of extra users and huge number of potential "good" developers for Maemo)
| The Following User Says Thank You to jakiman For This Useful Post: | ||
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2009-12-28
, 04:10
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Posts: 87 |
Thanked: 88 times |
Joined on Sep 2009
@ Beijing
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#29
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A bit late but here's one of the bigger papers talking about the gray-market sales in china:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/06/iph...g-failure.html
There are more but I have a paper due tomorrow so maybe I'll post them after that. You can also google iPhone sales in China and many of the hits will have this info.
The per capita GDP for China is not a very good tool for assessing the market potential because of the income gaps, for the same reason total GDP is equally bad to use.
Sales of smartphones:
http://moconews.net/article/419-noki...rtphone-sales/
Finally, I might be wrong here but doesn't the fact tha Maemo is open-source sort of help with the property rights issue?
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/06/iph...g-failure.html
There are more but I have a paper due tomorrow so maybe I'll post them after that. You can also google iPhone sales in China and many of the hits will have this info.
The per capita GDP for China is not a very good tool for assessing the market potential because of the income gaps, for the same reason total GDP is equally bad to use.
Sales of smartphones:
http://moconews.net/article/419-noki...rtphone-sales/
Finally, I might be wrong here but doesn't the fact tha Maemo is open-source sort of help with the property rights issue?
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2009-12-28
, 05:03
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Posts: 101 |
Thanked: 129 times |
Joined on Oct 2009
@ Los Angeles, CA
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#30
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Open source or not does not solve copyright issue. Problem in China is that software infringement is so common even some of the projects are back by government itself.
For instance the infamous of Green Dam has been violated BSD license. Some of the .dll even has identical code from CyberSitter and even still links to their server.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4961
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/...ve-Lifted-Code
Copyright is not the only issue but also politics as well. Chinese government just issued a controversy act for asking foreign software companies to share their source code in case of 'security'. Also Skype confessed that it allows Chinese government to modify its software to track SMS. Otherwise the software would not be allowed to distribute.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/05/0124249
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4710
Regardless, China is a huge potential. However, it's still not a 'safe/stable' investing environment comparing to free market. Policy making can be changed in a night without issuing any warning or adjustment. Such overhead is often too great even potential revenue is high.
For instance the infamous of Green Dam has been violated BSD license. Some of the .dll even has identical code from CyberSitter and even still links to their server.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4961
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/...ve-Lifted-Code
Copyright is not the only issue but also politics as well. Chinese government just issued a controversy act for asking foreign software companies to share their source code in case of 'security'. Also Skype confessed that it allows Chinese government to modify its software to track SMS. Otherwise the software would not be allowed to distribute.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/05/0124249
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4710
Regardless, China is a huge potential. However, it's still not a 'safe/stable' investing environment comparing to free market. Policy making can be changed in a night without issuing any warning or adjustment. Such overhead is often too great even potential revenue is high.
And then there also is the question if you really want to sell high tech on a piracy dominated market like China. More and more European companies are leaving China, after having lost way too much money and know how.